5 Tips to Increase Your Adsense CTR (Click Through Rate) and CPC (Cost Per Click)

8 Tips to Increase Your Adsense CPC (Cost Per Click) and CTR (Click Through Rate)

I’m going to show you 8 effective Adsense tips on how you can double your income from your existing traffic with a few optimization tricks I’ve picked up over the years.

1. Place at least 2 ads within the post content

I know, it’s ugly to have ads mixed into your content, but it’s where your ads can get the most exposure. I like to place at least 2 ad blocks within the content itself: 1 at the top and 1 at the bottom.

What works best for me is to put the first ad right below the first paragraph, and the second one right after the content.

2. Use all your ad blocks, and make them big

Starting off simple.

Use all your ad blocks. In addition to increasing your chances for a click, this increases the ad spaces on your site advertisers can bid on and gives you a better overall RPM. You’re allowed to use 3 ad blocks and 3 link units for each page of your site. While I don’t normally use link units at all, I do use 3 ad blocks no matter how short my content is.

Forget all the other size options that Adsense gives you. Bigger is better. Forget trying to blend it into your content, just make them visible so people can’t miss it. I’ve done extensive testing colours and came to one conclusion: blending is not always the answer. As long as people can see them, they’ll click on it if it’s something they’re interested in.

3. Use a Scrolling Ad Block

Google does list this as not-allowed in their policies. However, I’ve been using it for years and have even passed a manual review on my site. Use this at your own risk. It may be a case-by-case basis. If they see you are using it to manipulate clicks, you are putting your account as risk.

Ever visit a website and see the ad follow you down the page as you scrolled down? Implementing that into my websites dramatically improved my CTR and overall RPM.

Even if you do get permission to use it, it’s only against the policy if you hover it over your content. For example, if you had an ad block above your post title and it covered your content as you scrolled down, that would be against the rules.

If you have it in the sidebar, away from any content on the site, you’re allowed to use the feature.

For this, I like to use the Q2W3 plugin, which is free for WordPress users. Just activate the plugin, and you’ll see an option in your widgets to make them sticky.

Sidebar ads really suck for Adsense. But with this scrolling plugin, I improved my sidebar-ad CTR by over 150%.

The best ad unit for this? The giant 300 x 600 large skyscraper ads.

4. Use Text & Image Based Ad

With Adsense, you’re allowed to choose whether your ad unit is image based or text based. Unless you’re seriously in love with one type of ad, try using Text & Image based.

Using both text and image options allows more advertisers to bid on it (text ad bids and image ad bids) and increases your overall Cost Per Click.

Don’t expect to see an instant jump in CPC. From my experience, it’s not a huge increase, but over time, it does pay more per click than an only text or only image ad.

Increase your CTR instantly by using the Newspaper WP Theme, the highest converting Adsense WP theme I’ve ever used.

6. Create a Shortcode

For WordPress users.

This involves editing some PHP files, but don’t freak out if you can’t code. This is really simple stuff.

What it does is it allows you to create a simple shortcode that allows you to add in ads wherever you please.

So while you’re writing an article, all you have to do is type in [ads] wherever you want the ad to be, and it will place it there. This is useful if you want to control your ad positions on shorter and longer posts, or for different kind of posts such as a video or image heavy posts.

Here’s how to do it.

1. Go into your WordPress editor and open the functions.php file.

2. Paste in this code:

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// Ad Shortcode   function ads_shortcode() {     return 'ERASE-THIS-PART-AND-PASTE-IN-YOUR-ADSENSE-CODE-HERE'; } add_shortcode('ads', 'ads_shortcode');

Don’t forget to delete the line that says ERASE-THIS-PART-AND-PASTE-IN-YOUR-ADSENSE-CODE-HERE and paste in your Adsense code.

You can put in styling along with your Adsense code to center them, float them, place 2 ads side by side, etc.

It’s awesome.

Now, when you’re writing or editing your posts, wherever you type in [ads], it will show the Adsense code and whatever styling you applied to it.

5. My Favourite Ad Position: Under 1st Paragraph

My best performing ad position is usually the large rectangle or regular 300×250 ad block placed right under the first paragraph of the post or page.

From my own testing, these performed better than floating it to the right of the first paragraph or having it right under the title.

Here’s a simple function you can add to your functions.php file. It will add in your Adsense code right after “x” amount of paragraphs. For me, I choose 1 to put it right after the first paragraph, but you can choose any number you want.

Here’s how to do it:

1. Go into your WordPress editor and open the functions.php file.

2. Copy and paste this in:

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function insert_ad_block( $text ) { if ( is_single() ) : $ads_text = 'ERASE-THIS-PART-AND-PASTE-IN-YOUR-ADSENSE-CODE-HERE'; $split_by = "\n"; $insert_after = 1; //number of paragraphs // make array of paragraphs $paragraphs = explode( $split_by, $text); // if array elements are less than $insert_after set the insert point at the end $len = count( $paragraphs ); if ( $len < $insert_after ) $insert_after = $len; // insert $ads_text into the array at the specified point array_splice( $paragraphs, $insert_after, 0, $ads_text ); // loop through array and build string for output foreach( $paragraphs as $paragraph ) { $new_text .= $paragraph; } return $new_text; endif; return $text; } add_filter('the_content', 'insert_ad_block');

Don’t forget to delete the line that says ERASE-THIS-PART-AND-PASTE-IN-YOUR-ADSENSE-CODE-HERE and paste in your Adsense code.

Just like the first one, you can also apply any styling you want to it.

5. Control Your Sidebar Ads Depending on What Page You’re On

Maybe a sidebar ad performs well on the homepage and archive pages, but not in your individual posts. Well, this can easily be fixed with a free plugin called Display Widgets.

I use it for almost all of my Adsense sites because sidebar ads don’t perform the same on every page of the site.

Simply install and activate the plugin. After that, just go into the WordPress Widgets section of your admin and you can control each individual widget and on which pages it’s hidden and which pages it’s shown.

Note: If you select “Show on Selected Pages” it will hide it on every page BUT the ones you select. If you select “Hide on Selected Pages” it will show it on every page BUT hide it from the ones you select. You don’t have to configure this for every single one of your widgets, only the ones you want to control. If you don’t touch it, it will just go with your theme’s default settings.

7 Proven Strategies to Increase Your Blog’s Traffic by 226%

Traffic Strategy #1: Kindle Select 90-Day Traffic Plan

Did you know that self-published books now represent 30%+ of e-book sales in the Amazon Kindle Store?

You used to need thousands of dollars and a contract with a large publishing house to get published. That’s changed. Anyone with an idea worth sharing can be a published author within a week and, more importantly, drive a lot of search traffic to their blog.

I won’t discuss Kindle publishing in detail here (read Copyblogger’s excellent guide instead), but I will show you how to drive targeted traffic and reach thousands of people for free when you publish via Amazon KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing).

Here’s how it works.

When you publish your Kindle book, you can enroll your book in the “Kindle Direct Publishing Select Program.”

That makes your book exclusive to the Kindle Store for 90 days and includes it in the Kindle Owner’s Lending Library, where thousands of targeted readers can borrow it for free. You can even run a free promotion for a paid ebook for 5 of those 90 days.

There are two simple ways to use your Kindle book to drive traffic to your blog or landing page:

1. Link directly to your website inside the book  and  Use a free giveaway.

Let’s first go over how you can get search engine traffic by linking directly to your blog article site.

Traffic Strategy #2: How to create viral content

Everyone wants to create viral content, but most people fail. That’s because they don’t pay attention to the sites that successfully create viral posts, day in and day out. If they did, they would learn three secrets of viral content creation to increase blog traffic.

The first secret, which isn’t really a secret, is to write great headlines. 8 out of 10 people will click to read your content if you get the headline right.

This isn’t a new concept. In fact, it’s really old (like 1927-old).

Check out this ad from the roaring 20s.

Traffic Strategy #3: How to create evergreen list posts

Evergreen list posts are another proven strategy for increasing blog search traffic. A Moz case study defines evergreen posts as “content having a continued and sustained success” and also shows that evergreen posts can generate traffic years after their original publication.

60 Second Marketer sums up the dos and don’ts of creating evergreen content in this slide:

Traffic Strategy #4: Long-tail keyword domination

Create a spreadsheet when you first start doing keyword research.

In one column, add the URL. In another, add the key phrase that associates with it.

You’ll be good to go on volume and competition, but don’t forget about creating some context. This is where long-tail keywords come in handy. It’s good for those users who are more toward the middle and bottom of the funnel that are on their way to converting.

Traffic Strategy #5: Email traffic generation

Redicati revealed that there are over 3.6 billion email accounts worldwide and that more than 247 million emails are sent every day. Email experts also claim that, on average, for every $1 you spend on email marketing, you’re going to make up to $42 back.

If you don’t believe me, just look at Quick Sprout. One simple email blast helped generate $43,036 in income in less than 24 hours.

Sounds great, but don’t get too excited, because most email lists are dead and yield no search traffic results.

How can you make yours come alive?

Simple. Build a specialized or ‘elite’ list and nurture your subscribers so that they always open and act on your emails.

Why do you want a list for a “privileged minority”? Because to succeed, you don’t need everyone on your list.

In fact, do all that you can to weed out those who don’t want or need what you have to offer – you ONLY need the right people.

Let’s first talk about the benefits of building an elite email list:

• You’re collecting only targeted leads.
• When you send newsletters, the open rates will be high.
• The click-through rate will blow your mind.
• You’ll get huge word of mouth referrals.
• You can build a profitable business with less than 1,000+ elite subscribers.
• Your email subscribers will be your #1 source of qualified traffic for relevant offers.

Traffic Strategy #6: Twisted guest blogging

I talked about guest blogging as a proven way to increase traffic to your landing page and build your list. Here’s a unique approach to guest blogging (that’s why it’s “twisted”).

One blogger recorded a 203% increase in traffic growth when his guest posts were featured on high-traffic and relevant blogs.

Did he target a select group of keywords with specific long-tail keyword phrases? Yes, he did.

Did he build backlinks in order to improve rankings? No, he didn’t.

And, take a look at the traffic stats for Moosa Hemani, who guest posted on Moz.com: